Literature and Environment

This study adopts an ecolinguistic framework to analyse the ideological framing of ecological and social crises in Helon Habila's Oil on Water. Going beyond thematic critique, it examines the linguistic mechanisms that influence readers' perception of the Niger Delta's petro-violence. Central to this analysis is Arran Stibbe's model, especially the concepts of 'salience' and 'erasure', which are utilised to explore how Habila's prose constructs a particular worldview. The novel's language vividly highlights the visceral, sensory horrors of pollution, such as poisoned waterways and lifeless wildlife, thereby fostering deep empathy for affected communities and ecosystems. However, through grammatical strategies like passivisation, nominalisation, and the omission of specific agents, the narrative also obscures the direct responsibility of multinational oil corporations and complicit government entities. This interplay fosters an ideology of resigned tragedy and systemic inevitability, where environmental devastation is presented as an inescapable natural force rather than a result of deliberate human actions. The study concludes that while Habila's skillful use of language immerses the reader in the slow violence's experience, its neglect of perpetrators risks naturalising the very power structures it criticises. Ultimately, this linguistic analysis affirms Stibbe's framework for unpacking postcolonial eco-narratives and highlights the critical role of discourse in either challenging or perpetuating stories of ecological injustice.

This paper investigates the convergence of ecocriticism and subaltern studies through Amitav Ghosh’s “The Hungry Tide”, which is set in the ecologically vulnerable and politically marginalized Sundarbans. By integrating the issues of environmental degradation and marginalization of subaltern voices—especially those of refugees, indigenous populations, and the non-human realm—this article introduces a novel framework termed Eco-Subalternity. Ghosh’s narrative illustrates how prevailing ecological discourses, including conservation and climate policy, frequently silence those who are most impacted by environmental decisions. The depiction of the Morichjhanpi massacre, Fokir’s instinctive ecological knowledge and the conflict between scientific inquiry and lived experiences highlight the necessity for a critical perspective that merges ecological justice with subaltern agency. This work champions an inclusive ecocriticism that considers the perspectives of both human and non-human subalterns, recognizing the power dynamics inherent in their voices, spaces, and struggles for survival.

History is replete with the incidents of the unnecessary and indiscriminate killing of a large number of human beings by those wielding power. Even in the modern age of democracy, state-sponsored massacres do happen, and politics plays a crucial role in such unfortunate happenings. Morichjhapi 'massacre,' which is reported to have been perpetrated by the Left Front Government of West Bengal between 14 and 16 May 1979, is one of the worst human rights violations in post-independent India. As the victims were Bengali Dalit Hindus, who came to India during the second wave of refugees from East Bengal/Bangladesh, sociologists, historians, and Dalit activists have put out theories on what happened and why? Amitav Ghosh has fictionalized the incident in his novel The Hungry Tide (2004) to expose the Marxist Government's capitalist objective of profit maximization through international conservationist agencies funding the Tiger Reserve Project. Besides, the novel reveals how political expediency overrides the party's ideology.

Alkali’s society is deeply patriarchal in nature and women’s position does not go beyond a mere feeble and second class figure. In Northern Nigerian society, women have no say in whatever matters that may arise in the family. The men are the ones to decide, even if the matter affects the women. With this picture of Northern Nigerian society, Alkali has the boldness and courage to come up with questions on women’s role in her literary writings. In the novels, The Stillborn and The Descendants Alkali established matriarchal society through cultural change which means supporting and encouraging gender conflict to continue. The objective of this paper is to examine how cultural change in Alkali’s society is used in establishing matriarchal society using her female characters in the two texts. Textual analysis is to be conducted as the methodology, in order to discover how cultural change and female characters are used in establishing matriarchy. Nego-feminism is hoped to be the tool for...

Tierratrauma encapsulates the experience of sudden and traumatic environmental upheaval, often manifested in climate change-induced disasters and famines. In her novel Son of the Thundercloud (2016), Easterine Kire, a writer hailing from Nagaland in the Northeast of India, investigates into this theme, painting a picture of despair where social cohesion wanes and hunger becomes ubiquitous. The narrative follows Pele, a man shattered by the devastation of famine, who struggles to find solace amidst the chaos. Kire adeptly intertwines Naga creation myth into Pele's journey, highlighting the pressing concern of climate change and the role of storytelling in confronting trauma. Pele's character embodies the despair wrought by sudden environmental shifts, leading to a crisis of faith in traditional beliefs and societal structures. As rationality falters, mythical fiction emerges as a beacon of hope, offering an alternative truth that transcends the limitations of language and culture. Through myth, Kire suggests a pathway to restoring the human-nature connection, emphasizing the intrinsic value of the natural world beyond its utility as mere resources. This article seeks to explore the intersection of Tierratrauma, myth, and environmental restoration in Kire's narrative. By examining Pele's journey of resilience and the transformative power of myth, it aims to expound how storytelling can serve as a catalyst for healing and revitalizing our relationship with nature. Ultimately, it advocates for the recognition of myth as a compelling tool in addressing the existential threat of climate change, fostering a deeper sense of stewardship towards the systems that sustain life on Earth.

This article examines the ethico-ecological prudence of Mahasweta Devi's Bengali novel Salgirar Dake (1982) but the approach presupposes a quick glance at the concept of asymptote. The word traces its origin to Greek asumptotos, the implication being "not falling together". Reviewed metaphorically, the concept of asymptote calls into question all such hitherto mapped-out interstices that describe the shared matrix of and beyond the ecocentricanthropocentric binary. The Environmental Justice (EJ) literature, the ethico-legal term by which ecocritic Lawrence Buell has stereotyped a cluster of contemporary texts, has been given undue emphasis as the sole torch-bearer of environmental justice concerns. Buell has categorized certain landmark features of EJ literature but his ideas are eerily silent about the question of ethics, liminality and ambivalence. In fact, no work on environment or environmental justice can afford to gloss over the pull of ambivalence, this very sense being a necessary mark of ethical choice and prudence.

This research paper explores the threats to biodiversity through an ecocritical lens, using Anuradha Roy's The Folded Earth. The novel is set against the backdrop of the Himalayan foothills, an ecologically significant and delicate ecosystem. By examining themes of deforestation, urbanization, wildlife displacement, anthropocentric human activities, it analyses how Roy's work depicts environmental degradation, and explores in what way human activities are becoming threats to biodiversity. This paper sheds light on how literature can raise awareness on the burning issue and to advocate the preservation of biodiversity. This paper mainly focuses on how The Folded Earth addresses various threats to biodiversity and reflects the ecological imbalances as a result of anthropocentrism. The research attempts to study the novel and environmental reality parallelly to understand how fiction can mirror and magnify the challenges faced by ecosystems in the modern world.

Drawing on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's Aranyak (Of the Forest), this article endeavors to depict the interconnection between human and ecological atmosphere where Bandyopadhyay's cognizance of environment and the altering of nature in the modern capitalist society is evidently shown. It attempts to depict that advancing perpetual desires, homocentric customs, technology, and the idea of a 'good life' instigate climate change and ecocide. The fulcrum of this study is exploring Bandyopadhyay's cognizance about how nature shapes humans and vice versa. For this purpose, this study applies the theory of Bioregionalism. Bioregionalism aims to achieve a co-adaptive fit between local cultures and the ecology. The wildlife we see in Aranyak is of a specific region of India: Lobtulia in Bihar. However, the local becomes universal in Bandyopadhyay's seasoned hand. The findings of this research are how Bandyopadhyay shows Mother Nature as the spring and the basis of human being's succor and serenity, how the distortion of nature distorts natives' lives, and how regional ecology shapes their lives.

The emergence of North East Indian literature in English has gained significant momentum over the past few decades, drawing widespread attention to the region's rich and diverse cultural landscape. This literature reflects the complex interplay of various tribal traditions and oral histories, set against a backdrop of economic challenges, insurgency, identity struggles, and military oppression that have contributed to a deep sense of isolation and cultural marginalization among its people. Contemporary writers from the North East, through their works, articulate the collective memories and hardships endured by earlier generations. The literature from this region defies a singular classification, as it encapsulates a broad spectrum of experiences and voices. This paper seeks to define the distinctiveness of North East Indian literature, particularly works written in English, by introducing the term 'NEO Literature.' This term is intended to honour and celebrate the uniqueness of this literary tradition. The methodology adopted includes the application of cultural race theories and the Black Aesthetic Movement from the United States, which serve as lenses to examine the works of prominent North East Indian authors such as Dhruba Hazarika, Mamang Dai, Aruni Kashyap, Easterine Kire, Janice Pariat, Jahnavi Barua, Temsula Ao, and Moushumi Kandali. The term 'NEO Literature' stands for 'North East Origin' Literature, encapsulating the dominant themes and trends observed among 21st-century writers from this region who primarily write in English.

Eco-criticism plays a vital role in the literary world. It bridges the connection between literature and nature and provides a geocentric approach to study literature. Eco-criticism becomes apparent in 1990s, in response to growing anthropogenic activities and its impact on nature. The present research examines Amitav Ghosh's, The Hungry Tide (2004) as the basis for conducting an in-depth analysis of the linkage between literature and environment. It further studies the notions of Ecology; Its preservation and destruction. The Hungry Tide is Amitav Ghosh's 4th novel. It is a paragon in representing the bond between human and nature. The narrative is intricately set in Sundarbans, giving the readers a glimpse of the inhabitants of the island. The protagonist, a young cetologist travels to Sundarbans in search of the 'Orcaella', the endangered dolphins. Through an Eco-critical lens, this observation seeks to unravel the contribution of the novel in ecological consciousness and the effect of anthropogeneous acts on the nature and how one can recoup the essence of nature. This study will show how flora and fauna is being affected by the human activities and suggest some ways how one can make harmony and balance between human and nature.

AmitavGhosh's The Hungry Tide reflects on persistent tragedy of the tide country people and their continual struggle for survival. The topography, the fauna and the waterways of Sundarbans decides the fate of the people. The many histories of Sundarbans form the focal point of The Hungry Tide. As Kanai reads the diary of Nirmal, the stories of Kanai's own memories of the visit he paid to Sundarbans as a child and the historical eviction of the refuge settlers from the island of Morichjhapi in 1979 portrays nature and the inter-dependence of man and nature. The various characters too benefit from the environment. Piya and Kanai learn humility and sacrifice as they are confronted by the tragedies and the quiet heroism of the people. Ecology and humanity co-exist with one another as a part of one of the successful attributes of Globalisation.

The paper examines how Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide and
Indra Sinha's Animal's People register the sense of vulnerability and
precarity of ecocatastrophic experiences and place these experiences
in the collective memory ofpeople. The paper explores the interrelation
between detrimental human actions and their impact on both human
and nonhuman lives and the dimensions which these narratives
construct, adapt, and respond to. The paper discusses the ways in
which the authors imagine the calamity, its representation, and
narration, portraying the slow, unnoticed, unmeasured, and cumulative
disaster. It shows how literary texts, in their cultural bearing, enable
the reader to realize that human activity is the common link between
lenvironmental disasters.

Due to the environmental crisis plaguing the world, the following paper investigates the manner in which Chinua Achebe represents man's relationship with nature in his texts. The study sets out to examine the Nigerian author's vision of the interconnectedness between man, nature and the deities in his trilogy Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God. It attempts to provide an answer to the following question: how does Chinua Achebe portray the contact between man, nature and the deities? The work is based on the premise that Chinua Achebe depicts the link between these three elements as an entity that cannot be split since one item has a great bearing on the others. Second Wave Ecocriticism as outlined by Lawrence Buell is used to bring out the supernatural dimension of Achebe's ecological vision.
Key words: Environment, Fiction, Ecocriticism, Chinua Achebe, Degradation, Protection,
Vision, Deities, Supernatural, Interconnectedness

elements are presented in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow
of God and Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude
the Obscure. The research question that guides the research is: how do Chinua Achebe and
Thomas Hardy project man’s links with plants? The hypothesis is based on the premise that
Chinua Achebe and Thomas Hardy present the instances in which man lives in harmony with
plants as well as those wherein the cohabitation is conflicting. This work associates
Phytocriticism with the Comparative Approach to compare the visions of Achebe and Hardy
about man and plants in the selected texts; and concludes that these authors, at various
degrees, highlight both the friendly and unfriendly aspects of man’s relationship with
botanical items in order to call for more peaceful coexistence between the two.
KEY WORDS: Plants, Fiction, Phytocriticism, Comparative Analysis, Protection, Vision

The (un)friendly relationship between man and other elements of the ecosystem preoccupies people in all domains including
literature. This paper seeks to investigate the presentation of the links between human beings and the fauna in Chinua Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God and Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the
D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. The research question that guides the work is: how do Chinua Achebe and Thomas Hardy
project man’s relationship with the fauna? The hypothesis is based on the premise that both authors highlight instances in which
man harms as well as others in which he protects animals. Using Zoocriticism and the Comparative Approach, the work concludes
that Achebe and Hardy showcase multidimensional degrees of interaction between man and animals with the aim of promoting
more peaceful co-existence between them; though they did so in different manners owning to their varying cultural backgrounds.
Thus, ecological discourses should take into account the contexts as different spatio-temporal entities project different
environmental realities.
Keywords: Environment, Fiction, Zoocriticism, Comparative Analysis, Vision

This paper explores the importance of the Evil Forest in Things Fall Apart and its implications for contemporary environmental conservation, arguing that indigenous knowledge systems can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Abstract:This article critically shows the limitation of Western education pattern in achieving youth
youths to cultural activities that prepare them to meeting up with challenges ahead of them through initiation
theiryouths to educational patterns adaptable to their needs and that of their countries so as to reduce death
As findings, African traditional education pattern, especially the Igbo traditional educationpattern exposes
described in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) via cultural theory and postcolonial criticism theory.
empowermentin Africa. Evidences will be provided through exploring African traditional education patterns
rates of African youths in the Mediterranean Sea every year.
development and empowerment. So, it is high time modern African governments stopped copy pasting western
of youths’ empowerment, especially the traditional Igbo education pattern of youths’ empowerment as
addition, the Igbo traditional education patterns put the youths at the centerof social, economic and political
ceremony,informalteaching,watching and imitating grown-ups who have succeeded in a given domain. In educational system with no objective of empowering the African youth; Contemporary Africans should submit
Keywords:Africa, Traditional Igbo pattern, Western, youths’ education,

Discourses about environmental crises are imbued with an elegiac tone; they are often inflected as acts of mourning for a lost nature, extinct species, or a dying planet. This article discusses the resources and limits of the elegiac when it comes to acknowledging or, conversely, obscuring the systemic forces behind such crises. The investigation focuses on two crucial issues: the act of naming and the particular-universal dichotomy, a conundrum at the heart of elegy and ecopoetry alike. Re-reading Juliana Spahr’s poem “Gentle Now, Don’t Add to Heartache” (2005), which has been interpreted as an elegy governed by a melancholic structure, this article argues that what the poem reveals is not so much a retrospective idealization of a lost primal world, as the extent to which that world was already contaminated and the socio-economic system that prevented a community from becoming aware of that contamination while it was happening. Seeking a way out of the mourning vs. melancholia framework, the poem will also be discussed with the aid of Sigmund Freud’s essay “On Transience,” rather than the classic “Mourning and Melancholia.”

Ian McEwan's (1948-) Nutshell (2016) has drawn the attention of academic spheres as a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet since its publication. That is why the novel has been mostly studied as a rewriting in which the existential questionings of Shakespeare's Hamlet are attributed to a modern-day foetus. Employing a foetus as a narrator and protagonist in the novel, McEwan demonstrates the reflections of Hamlet's existential crisis on a contemporary foetus who is oscillating between being human and nonhuman. As helpless as Hamlet for his modern-day problems, the foetus narrator talks about his consciousness, human side, morality and, most importantly, his role in this world which is devastating gradually due to various reasons such as environmental problems, climate crisis and wars. In that respect, it can be asserted that the novelist raises questions about humannonhuman, ethics and morality through the story told by a foetus protagonist. Even though McEwan touches upon the environmental crisis through the foetus's narration, Nutshell has never been studied from an ecocritical perspective. However, the foetus's entanglement with the womb and the story originating from this bond are the instances of human-place entanglement. From the perspective of material ecocriticism, with the "narrative agency" given by the material environment, the foetus becomes the text that narrates his story of birth and becoming human. Accordingly, this study aims to analyse the foetus in Nutshell as a "storied matter" by emphasising the humanplace entanglement in the womb.

qui a lieu. Essai d'écopoétique (Marseille: Éditions Wildproject, 2015), 295pp. Pierre Schoentjes, a professor for French literature at the University of Gent, has been known for his studies of literature and irony 1 , as well as First World War fiction 2 . More recently, his interest has turned towards the relationship between literature and the environment. This has not only led to a series of papers 3 , but also to a special issue of the Revue critique de fixxion francaise contemporaine 4 , and to the book under review. Ce qui a lieu aims to open up the new critical field of "écopoétique" (I will continue to use the French term instead of translating it to "ecopoetics," since the latter suggests a stronger link to American-rooted transcendentalism and nature writing). Écopoétique, Schoentjes insists, must not to be conflated with ecocriticism 5 , whose political agenda, characterized by "national, lyrical and militant approaches 6 ," he strongly rejects. Écopoétique is described as the study of the relationship between literature and the environment as perceived by the senses ("la réalité concrète des choses," 18; "au contact du monde sensible," 35). It is defined not by a literary topic, nor by a conceptual turn, but rather is seen as the contextual result of an increasing concern for the environment (13). The cornerstone of Schoentjes' écopoétique is his reading of French writer Pierre Gascar : "The sensual appetite for the world defines Gascar: it is the intimate experience of nature that helps the writer to imagine the real. Without this intimate experience, mythology, history, ethnology and natural sciences are not able to describe the real world" (214; this and all subsequent translations are by S. T.). Along with the rejection of positivism, anthropomorphic symbolism, and moralism (217), literature's aesthetic unveiling of place encourages the reader to rethink the relationship between reality and imagination (204-205). Whereas Gaston Bachelard's La Poétique de l'espace (1957) still strongly influences the way French literary studies address the relationship between space and imagination, Schoentjes quotes (180) Lawrence Buell's formulation that "[t]here never was an is without a where" (Buell 2001: 55) to argue

There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. "" _ , The only time you're happy is when you don't know what time it is. RUDY BURCKHARDT Conversations With Rudy Burckhardt About Everything J-he Drum, one of three children's stories published during the 1970s by Chinua Achebe, derives from a family of Tortoise tales, a significant component of West African oral tradition. In his introduction to The Adventures of Torti: Tales From West Africa (1991), Stephen U. Chukumba notes the popularity (and perhaps importance) of Tortoise tales when he asserts that there are more stories about this trickster hero "in Igbo land and perhaps in all of West Africa" (viii) than about any other character, human, or animal. In The Drum, Achebe uses Tortoise to meditate upon the human condition from a uniquely African viewpoint. The plot is deceptively simple: drought and famine spur Tortoise to search for food; finding his way into spirit land, he is given a magic drum that, like the fabulous cornucopia, produces an abundance of food as desired. Tortoise decides to exploit the drum for political power, but, on-the eve of his coronation as king of the animals, the drum is broken. Tortoise returns to spirit land, to demand a replacement, but the second drum does not procure feasts; it procures pain. Bees, wasps, and masked spirits brandishing whips, pour from the drum whenever someone

While there are a number of competing accounts dealing with the Romantic period and the rise of green consciousness, whether it is the evolution of a poetic ‘green language’ or a scientific language of conservation that is being attended to, what is almost invariably communicated is an elite perspective. This is unfair and unhelpful to the diversity of the modern environmental movement. Referring to the essays in the collection, the introductory chapter argues for the necessity of a class-based approach to the development of a more politically relevant and inclusive ecocriticism.

Here I provide some of my most important contributions to the ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR ENGLISH STUDIES, focussing on the development of ECOCRITICISM (also known as Green Studies or Environmental Humanities). If citing this selection, use the following details: Laurence Coupe, 'Ecocriticism', ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR ENGLISH STUDIES, ed. Robert Clark (Lisse & Abingdon: Swets & Zeitlinger, 2000).

Ecological consciousness, the awareness created in stories through representation of human interaction with the environment, is paramount in African prose for children. Existing studies have focused mostly on style, didacticism and other contemporary issues, to the neglect of ecological consciousness. This study examined the depiction of ecological consciousness in selected African prose narratives for children with a view to revealing the predominant environmental tropes, ethics and symbols employed in them.

The research paper on Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem 'God's Grandeur' analyzes the tripartite relation among nature, god, and human beings through an eco-centric perspective. It observes the ecological crisis in nature due to its destruction at an alarming rate in modern times. It also finds that nature is being spoiled continuously because of the failure of human beings to recognize god's presence in nature, the anthropocentric nature of human beings, the anthropogenic activities of modern people, and the lack of ecological conscience in the world. However, nature compensates for the destruction caused by human beings with its self-regulatory and selfrecovery system as a blessing and divine power of god. It justifies that there is an emergent call for raising human conscience through eco-spiritualism focusing on the interconnectedness among nature, god, and human beings for the sustainability of human existence and preservation of nature through the depiction of the omnipresence of god in the particles of nature, humanity, and eco-spiritualism. The researcher employs Arne Naess's theory of 'deep ecology' through the perspective of eco-spiritualism in the poem 'God's Grandeur' to justify the vitality of the call for eco-spiritualism.

This paper excavates the valorization of violence in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart through the anthropological perspective of violence. Things Fall Apart explores the pre-colonial Igbo land of Umuofi a, Nigeria. The Umuofi an culture glorifi es the violence very highly and people of Umuofi a even legitimize the homicide in the name of masculinity. Their cultural practices encourage not only inter-cultural clash and confl ict but intra-cultural violence between and among its members. The protagonist of the novel, Okonkwo, is a respected warrior and clan leader of Umuofi a. He frequently exhibits violent acts: he kills a fi fteen-year-old boy Ikemefuna to prove his masculinity; at Ezeudu's funeral, Okonkwo's gun explodes and kills Ezeudu's son; he then slaughters a court messenger and fi nally commits suicide. Furthermore, Okonkwo kills several people in inter-racial wars. He severely beats his wives and children; he often quarrels with neighbors and engages himself in fi erce wrestling matches. Umuofi ans' associate violence with manliness and if a man fails to perform it, he is considered a woman. The present reading thus, attempts to unveil violence and its glorifi cation in the name of culture, masculinity, ritual sacrifi ce, and other kinds of communally sanctioned violence.

The boundary of what constitutes everyday resistance is blurry and very difficult to delineate because of its all-inclusive nature. Yet, if we become excessively selective of what constitutes everyday resistance, certain forms of actions that undermine power may be ignored. This paper examines the concept of everyday resistance, which can be intentional or unintentional and its capacity to undermine power. Using Helon Habila's Oil on Water, the paper further demonstrates how the concept of everyday resistance does not exist in exteriority to public resistance where both are in concurrent operation; it exists in some contexts as in the case of Oil on Water as a reinforcement of public resistance. The paper concludes that since both violent resistance and everyday resistance achieve the same result albeit in different time frames, everyday resistance is the more rational option.

In the light of continuous development of genetic engineering technologies, it is apparent that speculative fiction has successfully anticipated various advancements and their applications. As a key method in this genre, the concept of plausibility allows for a realistic prediction of current scientific trends into future possibilities. In her novel, Oryx and Crake (2003), Margaret Atwood takes a cautionary approach, depicting a speculative future in which the misuse of biotechnologies leads to catastrophic consequences. This article explores the portrayal of bioethical issues surrounding genetic modification. It underlines the interdisciplinary necessity of addressing these concerns and highlighting ethical responsibilities in connection with scientific innovation.

The historicization and theorization of human involvement with water led to the development of "water-centric thinking" which provides fresh perspectives to deal with oceanic geographies. This kind of cultural turn from land to sea enhanced the emergence of a new disciplinary realm called the Blue Humanities. The scrutiny of the sea in relation to contemporary Western culture transformed the utilitarian notion to an aesthetic perspective in connection with the sea. The designation of a new cultural status to the sea has been depicted by attributing oceanic images and metaphors. The paper discusses the environmental issues. Blue Humanities rejects the practice of anthropocentrism or unnecessary human intervention as a threat to the environment. The historian, Ellen Krefting has rightly observed; "Our oceans are radically changing due to human impact. It is our goal to show how knowledge about the sea is produced" (Blue Humanities, 2022). The study makes use of Material Ecocritical theory and qualitative research through analysis and contributions made by Blue Humanities Scholars. Steve Mentz, Dan Brayton, and Hester Blum advocated the need to use the ocean as a powerful lens to shift from watery metaphors to the ocean. Literature, Cultural Studies, and History are critically analysed at length to examine ecological ethics in posthuman critical moments. The paper highlights the fact that human commitment to nature is at stake and needs to be rectified at the earliest.

The current study explored the biocentric view in the selected poems of Elizabeth Bishop, highlighting an ecocritical arena of her poems. Furthermore, this idea represented Bishop's anti-anthropocentric perspective; while prevailing her biocentric view. The study deployed the content analysis methodology to analyze Bishop's biocentric attitude through her representation of animals, environment, natural phenomena, and the abiding relationship of all living things, including humans. In this sense, the study further showed that Bishop's oeuvre reveals a sense of environmental consciousness. Her poetry, particularly the selected poems, demonstrate a biocentric view of life that can be easily perceived in her subjective understanding of the nature and the creatures. This is obvious through her representation of natural phenomena such as seasonal cycles, weather, and physical and ecological elements including air, earth, and water that inculcates poet's environmental consciousness. Hence, by examining the prevailing biocentric view of the poet through an examination of her poetic language, this study shows that the expected environmental imagination elucidates social responsibility for readers, to understand the ecopoetic relationship.

This study explores the oppression faced by 18th-century labouring-class women through poetry
and intersectionality. By employing Kimberlé Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality and
Beverly Skeggs' theory of respectability it examines how gender and class intertwine to create
unique challenges. Analysing the lives and works of non-canonized women poets, the research
unveils enduring patterns of overlapping oppressions, highlighting the significance of
intersectionality in understanding women's experiences. This study offers fresh insights into their
struggles, contributing to both literary analysis and women's studies.
Keywords
Labouring class, intersectionality, respectability, oppression, gender inequalities.

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1875320&dswid=-562

this  research  explores  environmental  racism  in  the  forms  of  nigerian  ‘colonialism’  and  south  african  ‘apartheid’  policies.  it  is  designed  a  comparative  framework  to  chinua  achebe’s Things  Fall  Apart  (1958),  and  nadine  Gordimer’s  My  Son’s  Story  (1990).  this  research  helps  to  understand  the  ecocritical  approach  from  the  nigerian  and  south  african  context.  re/construction  of  racism  in  the  form  of  the  contemporary  theoretical  concept  of  ‘environmental  racism’  is  our  today’s  need.  this  study  aims  to  raise  a  voice  for  global  justice  and  environmental  sustainability.  environmental-related  dominant  issues  (i.e.  environmental  control  of  a  particular  group,  inequality  of  natural  resource  uses,  and  particular  group’s  accessibility  to  live  a  healthy  environment)  are  addressed  in  detail  and  analysed  through  these  texts.  the  theory  of  ‘environmental  racism’  is  interrogated  through  colonial  cultural,  and  apartheid  political  ways  concerning  the  african  world.  to  conclude,  the  ecological  crisis  and  environmental  racism  encountered  in  these  texts  have  clearly  illustrated  the  imbalance  of  utilizing  natural  resources.  aconsequence  of  this  inequality  and  exploitation  can  be  seen  in  nigerian  black,  and  south  african  ‘coloured’  communities  where  environmental  injustice  is  a  serious  issue.

Thomas Hardy is a popular writer and a masterful reporter of rural life. As a skilled creator of a host of interesting characters, he presents a pessimistic view of the universe. His 'Wessex' is a reflection of Dorset, south west coast of England, where he was born and reared. Hardy's Wessex is partly real and partly a dream country. As a regional writer his genius lies in imparting it a universal appeal and giving it a realistic spirit. This paper explores Hardy's engagement with nineteenth century ideas and will look into the contemporary debate about 'sustainability'. Hardy's belief of 'interconnectedness' that binds human beings and ecology finds full expression in his novels. He is suspicious of the advancement of modern civilization. As far as Wessex is unaffected by modernistic ideas, the natives are happy in their backwardness, poverty and simplistic living. But as the sophisticated people bring technology and machines in the town they disturb the even tenor of simple life. This disrupts the harmony between his characters and the landscape, leading to tragic ends. His belief of 'one-great network' recognizes the interdependency of life and ecology. The paper will explore how his imaginative realization represents this 'collectivity' in his novels.

This article analyses Deepan Sivaraman's 2012 production of Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt (1876) and argues that the production's scenography evoked scepticism toward the Indian nation-state. This scepticism came as a direct consequence of the scenography's ability to alienate the audience through the formation of dark ecological environments, with the help of three characters: the elf princess, the son of the elf princess, and a hell hound, a concept invented by Sivaraman while adapting the verse play of the Norwegian playwright into Malayalam and English. The dark ecological aesthetics of the production functioned like Bertolt Brecht's Gestus and Verfremdungseffekt, offering a dialectical point to the audience to reterritorialize their understanding of the Indian nation-state and its ecology. In the first part of the article, I analyse the Indian dramatic form of bhana used by Sivaraman to articulate the discourse of what Timothy Morton calls ‘dark ecology,' and argue that the bhana's satirical narrative remained central to writings of Otherness. In the second part of the article, I demonstrate how the production mounted imbricated narratives of ecological awareness on the stage through the figures of the elf princess, her son, and a hell hound that relentlessly witnessed the capitalist journey of Peer. By offering an active agency to these figures through the scenography, Sivaraman's production interrogated the Indian nation-state's definition of ecology. Significantly, in its choice of a non-human witness, the production destabilized the human centre and pointed towards a post-human ecological turn. Although Ibsen's aesthetics have been used countless times in India to stage the anxieties of the female gender and minority communities, this was the first time they were employed in India to stage dark ecology; Sivaraman's production began where Ibsen's play ends. In the first scene itself, the audience members found themselves face to face with Peer's spirit - rather than the flesh and blood Peer of Ibsen’s play - begging God for another chance at life so that he could become a better man. When Peer is offered a second chance, he uncannily uses it to become a non-resident businessman involved in mining. The performance showed how scenography could be used to articulate a dark and depressing ecological awareness.

One major similarity between Nigerian and African writers is their penchant to write about their environment, struggles, and pressing issues. This, as opposed to Gautier's 'l'art pour l'art' or 'Art for Art's sake' theory, identifies African literature as a literature of didacticism-meaning African literature aims at identifying and correcting some of the ills facing African society and it is not just art for art's sake.

This qualitative study explores the implicit values of symbols in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1985)from formalistic perspective. The chief objective of the current study is to examine how Hardy's philosophy becomes distinct through symbols and imagery. The paper aims atrevealing the effects of coded and figurative meanings of symbols, various words, phrases and other expressions that have a symbolic value by bringing forth their underlying and folded meanings, in particular reference to the symbol of furmity woman as a symbol of evil. This study found certain aspects of reality characteristic to novelist'sworldview represented in multidimensional facets of symbolic expressions. The thesis opens new ways of reading for the future researches.

Foreword to On Divestment The writings collected here are an online supplement to a class zine title On Divestment. The zine and online archive were conceived, written, and designed by the members of the Spring 2015 Literature and Environment course (ENGL 374) at the University of Puget Sound. Considerations of timeliness and sustainability encouraged us to keep the size of the printed zine compact by including only excerpts of each author’s work; the zine is in a sense an advertisement for the more substantial body of writing that you find here on Sound Ideas, which reproduces student creative work in its entirety. Informed by our study of works of ecocriticism such as Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard UP, 2011), which explores the role that imaginative writing can play in illuminating ecological issues, our class seized the opportunity of a collaborative final project to see how students’ own writing—whether creative, critical, or some combina...

The present paper intends to re-read the popular neoclassical poem "The Choice", written by (the now forgotten) John Pomfret at the dawn of the eighteenth century, and to demonstrate how it both fulfils and subverts several requirements of its genre. The paper contends that eighteenth-century pastoral poetry often served the purpose of recommending, rather than condemning the "vulgar" concerns of public and city life. The poetry of "retirement", popular in an age of growing commerce, industry and Empire, was meant to assuage the guilt of enterprising spirits and give a gentlemanly varnish to an England hungry for consumption and expansion. While Pomfret's poem certainly plays its part in such a narrative and comforts the anxieties of a business-oriented society, it also undermines the illusion of its "gentility", an aspect which will be exposed in a deconstructive close-reading of the text, employing Derrida's concept of aporia. The paper will also look at the poem from a socio-cultural perspective, relying on the ideas of eighteenth-century scholars such as Ian Watt, John Sitter, Ros Ballaster, Paula R. Backscheider and others.

Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner represents a complex relationship between father and son. It highlights Amir's longing to have his father's approval. Baba is the reason for Amir's guilt and is the one who causes Amir to let down Hassan. Here, father-son relationships are a perfect example of the challenges and triumphs of life and how consistent choices influence one's life. Amir wants to form the love of his distant father, Baba, a distance due to the secrets Baba keeps from Amir. Baba is forced to pay Hassan his full attention since Baba kept a secret about the fact to conceal the fact that Hassan was his child, a fact that Amir is not aware of. The apparent favoritism results in Amir leaving his friend for a long time and betraying the one who has always stood by him. Due to the varying focus, Baba's relationship with his sons leads to jealousy and betrayal among close friends. The Kite Runner is a somewhat realistic novel highlighting the issues of relations between fathers and sons. The characters have gone through challenging circumstances, which made them understandable, responsible, and sometimes cruel to each other. The novelist Khaled Hosseini wrote this novel using some elements identical to those that were part of the author's own life, and this had a significant influence on showing the relations between the characters.

The degradation of the Niger Delta environment through pollution has constituted challenges and concern for the people of the oil rich region. The ecosystem has completely been violated and destroyed. The destruction of the flora and fauna without clean-ups or compensation paid to host communities have resulted in youth restiveness and the up surge of militancy in the region. The violation of the system by the multinationals and the insensitivity of the Federal Government of Nigeria to the plight of the Niger Delta people have also escalated the controversies. The government has been indicted for lack of development of the region. Militancy/kidnapping are social vices which have bedeviled the area and led to oil theft through vandalization of oil pipelines and illegal bunkering causing widespread spillages, degradation and pollution of the ecosystem. This ugly trend often leads to closure of oil companies, loss of revenue, life and the people's source of livelihood. This paper therefore seeks to explore the issues of environmental degradation and its attendant consequences like the rise of militancy, Kidnapping, bunkering, oil theft in the region using Helon Habila's Oil on Water as the focal text. The paper seeks to proffer solutions to this age-long problem if socioeconomic and political growth is to be met in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

This paper explores how a form of visuality,-the picturesque became the essential framework for the emergence of a theme park on the landed estates of the Anglo-Irish landlords in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The initial cultural forms of the picturesque, which evolved from the disciplines of landscape painting and the philosophy of aesthetics, later became the design principles that guided the English Informal style of gardening. Accordingly, the original abstract concepts of the picturesque become physically embedded in the Irish landscape ecosystems and subsequently established these spatial enclaves as a picturesque theme park. In becoming spatialized, the colonial ideology of the picturesque,-designing Irish landscape to look like English landscape,-became a colonised space which was inherently hegemonic with regard to the native sense of place. In physically embedding the picturesque visual principles into the local ecosystems, the cultural forms of the picturesque take on ecological dimension to them, where aesthetic forms of society merge with the natural forms of plants and their metabolic systems. And in 'naturalising' the aesthetic principles of the picturesque, any portrayal of a scene from the theme park tended to replicate the hegemonic position of the picturesque as the dominant place ideology, since the portrayal tended to reproduce what the writer or author actually saw, the problem was that the scenes were already changed and manipulated to reflect the picturesque visuality. This particular social form of picturesque visuality fell from its dominant position with the fall of Irish landlordism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Cli-fi is an innovative genre of fiction that modernizes climate science into human stories. Writers of cli-fi discover, what it means to be human in a world that is influenced by warming temperature, powerful storms and rising seas. The cli-fi narratives arouse consciousness about the complex issues of climate change. The novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, published in 2003, is about a post-apocalyptic world which will be a reality in the future. The novel carries two distinct genres- a pre apocalyptic world and a post-apocalyptic world. The pre apocalyptic world is an exaggerated representation of the mid of twenty first century and the post-apocalyptic world is portrayed as the end of twenty first century. Oryx and Crake discusses a world that is completely destructed due to unscientific acts, war, global warming, climate change and diseases. The two genres narrate through the character Snowman who is the only survivor of the destruction.  Oryx and Crake, towards the end, n...